D line in Yonkers had to be squeezed in to a small space just along side of the stencil coaters and had to be folded in the middle. But this design helped D line to become the world's most productive PS plate producing machine. It was fed with an exact width aluminum roll. The web continuously traveled through various bath, turned around in the middle so that the final coating (two sides) station and cutting and punching station were again at the front so that one operator can run the whole machine. The finished plates were then immediately packed and shipped by a few inspectors/packers. It was Polychrome's first roll to sheet operating type manufacturing line. Our licensee Fuji Photo Film liked the concept and constructed their first production line in Odawara roll to sheet but straight without folding in the middle. This design continued to flourish in our factories as well as in licensee's plant
As in case of all the stencil master production facilities, Mr. Bob Gumbinner was the architect of the engineering of the D machine. He recollects.........
After
this C-machine had been in operation for several years. We designed
the D machine to make duplicator size offset plates. Based on a
suggestion of Ed Fritz. a former vice-president of Enco, we bought a
two sided gravure coater to
make dual kotes. With the help of Luis Mestre an old American Can
punch Press
was bought from a used machinery shop on the Bowery. The paper
coaters were moved to Spiedel. Because of limited space the tanks
were doubled stacked.The
unwind axle was in about the middle of the room. This was followed by
a polyphosphate degrease--etch tank with a Teflon heating coil. Then
a rinse section followed by DuPont potassium per sulfate solution at
room temperature to desmutthe
plate without nitric or chromic acids. After rinsing the web was
brought over two rollers to reverse the direction, These had electric
eye side controls to keep the web of aluminum in the middle.
Originally the aluminum went into a 160 degree potassium zirconium
fluoride tank followed by a hydrolysis tank. Then a distilled water
rinse and a dryer section. The web went through the coaters and then
vertically through the dryer which was exhausted to the roof. To have
room for drying the ceiling in this area was removed. After the
turnaround roll the aluminum web went under a floating balance roller
and then along with a black polyvinyl coated interleaver paper moved
the correct distance with a feed mechanism in to the punch press
where the mounting holes were punched and the sheet cut from the
roll. There it was picked up on a belt and moved into a stacker with
a counter. There was considerable difficulty coating both sides of
the plates. The gravure rolls were replaced with special rubber
coating rollers . These rollers were offset from each other and set
in pans. The formulations were adjusted to obtain the correct weight
coatings. Samples were checked on the line and in the lab. If the
rolls started to swell we would ground them.